Have you ever eaten in a lunch box?
Lunches, which meet a large portion of daily energy needs, are often provided in takeaway containers. Some of the plastic and cardboard packaging, plastic cutlery and plastic straws used for these meals cannot be recycled and end up in the garbage, partly due to the nature of their materials and partly due to food residue.
Let us also remind you that food prepared at home can be transported and stored fresh in reusable containers.
As part of the Plastic-Free July 2024 events, IMU Sustainability Student Club collaborated with Orvila to encourage people to use more sustainable alternatives to disposable food packaging and plastic straws, which cannot be recycled due to food residue, oil and dirt residues. To this end, students from the Sustainability Student Club and our Sustainability Office team visited the offices and social spaces at Göztepe North Campus on July 10, 2024 to provide information about the resource use, water consumption and environmental pollution caused by the production and use of single-use plastic packaging and plastic straws, and presented reusable food storage containers and steel straws to our campus community members. Thanks to this collaboration, a total of 21 campus communities stopped eating in plastic packaging and using plastic straws and received reusable food containers and steel straws free of charge. In addition to our campus community, in order to raise awareness in the public, 4 more people received reusable food containers and steel straws as a result of the information and giveaway on the social media accounts of the IMU Sustainability Student Club and the Sustainability Office on the same day.
During the event, the academic advisors of the project emphasized to all participants that natural resources are consumed during the production of single-use plastics and the consequences of this situation now and in the future. It was emphasized that plastic food packaging and plastic straws can easily be contaminated with food residue or oil, and therefore it is not possible to recycle these products, so that the consumption of these products not only consumes resources but also generates a large amount of plastic waste. On the other hand, due to the harmful microplastics they contain, these products pose a health risk to humans and pollute water resources, as well as posing a threat to the life of marine life by mixing into water resources.
Orvila, which sponsored the event, underlined that it is very important to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics for the future of our planet. Stating that these products have negative effects, especially environmental pollution, company officials stated that reusable products are our biggest helpers in this regard. It was emphasized that washable and reusable food containers and stainless steel straws are not harmful to human health and prevent the production of plastic waste that dissolves in nature in an average of 450 years.
With this social responsibility project carried out jointly by the IMU Sustainability Club and Orvila, 90 kilograms of plastic waste was prevented from being generated and this waste from remaining in nature for 450 years. By preventing this amount of plastic waste, 453 kg of greenhouse gas was prevented from being released into the atmosphere. Thus, by reducing the amount of plastic waste in our campus areas, in addition to contributing to our University’s zero waste project, it also contributed to reducing people’s environmental footprint.
The “Plastic-Free July” social responsibility project, which has been managed by IMU Sustainability Office since 2022, was carried out by IMU Sustainability Club this year. The academic consultancy of the project was undertaken by Res.Asst. Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK from IMU Sustainability Office team, who is also the academic advisor of IMU Sustainability Club, the club president Res.Asst. Furkan ERUÇAR and Lect. Zehra SAVAN.
Within the scope of the 2024 activities of the “Plastic-Free July” project, IMU Sustainability Club (IMUSUS) invited people to challenge them to remove a single-use plastic product they use in their daily lives every day for a month and step into a plastic-free life. During the challenge, environmental awareness was raised by providing information about the waste generation and environmental pollution caused by these plastic products every day through social media accounts. Following each of these informative social media posts, people were presented with sustainable alternatives with natural ingredients and packaging that do not produce plastic waste, which they could use instead of that plastic-containing product. IMUSUS also collaborated with 18 companies in Turkey and the world that are pioneers in sustainability and have sustainability labels in order to carry this awareness to consumer behavior. Thanks to this cooperation, on certain days of the challenge, with the sponsorship support provided by the companies, sustainable products were presented to both our students and staff and the public in order to create a new behavioral change in their daily lives. Thus, while enabling people to take the first step towards a plastic-free life, it also contributed to reducing the amount of single-use plastic waste and the environmental footprint of our campus community.
“Plastic-Free July” movement has been celebrated around the world since 2011, challenging people to eliminate single-use plastic products from their lives by raising awareness about plastic pollution and the amount of plastic they use.
